


A Moment of Warmth

by housebyside



Series: Moments With The Queen [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Violence, Spoilers for episode 64
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 02:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8038465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/housebyside/pseuds/housebyside
Summary: The Goddess of the moment after death meets with a friend of her champion.





	A Moment of Warmth

In one moment he is intensely cold. He never liked the cold. He thinks this until he cannot. In another moment he is in the dark. He looks around curiously at this room? It doesn't feel like he's standing but he isn't floating, he knows that feeling and this isn't it. He feels like he exists and nothing else does. 

Another moment, or maybe it’s the same moment, and there is a woman, human maybe, elven maybe, he wasn't ever that observant. And she is wearing a mask. Her form is that same darkness that surrounds him but he can somehow tell that this nothing is different and part of her. The only thing that looks real besides him is the mask. He looks at it intensely and speaks, "Who are you? I'm Tiberius Stormwind, From Draconia." He winces and he supposes none of that is true anymore he does not exist and neither does his home.

"Yes you are.” She seems to say in response to his thoughts, “You may call me the Raven Queen."

The name means nothing to him but he nods.

"You are in the moment of death and I will show you to the other side," she says, probably, he's not sure how her voice can exist while she does not.

"I understand," and he does, this was the end of him and he had known ever since the dragon arrived, he never gave up fighting, but all stubbornness he had held onto in life crumbled as his city did.

"This is just a moment, this is less than time, I extend it to talk," she explains something he hadn't wondered about yet, "My champion cares for you so I in turn."

"Champion?" He still does not know anything about the Raven Queen and briefly wonders if in death, in this moment, if his memories are slipping away.

"Vax'ildan." She supplies.

His smile is ancient, "Vox Machina."

"Yes." 

"They still live. I had hoped, but I feared they would meet the same fate." He realizes this was a new thought and as he died of cold thrust through his heart this was the thought he was dying thinking.

"They do. They plan to defeat all of the dragons threatening your world." He didn't see the mask shift but it now smiled sadly.

His smile was sad too, but he feels incredible joy, he feels tears as well, "I knew they didn't need me."

"Foolish dragonborn," she shakes her head but says nothing more.

"They'll defeat that white dragon butthole," he says with finality. He says it not to reassure himself, but to say it because he knows it is true.

"This moment has to come to end is there anything else you would like to feel? Something you wish my champion to feel?"

He focuses and in that moment the cold disappears forever and he feels that incredible warmth that always felt like home, "This. Let your Champion feel this."

She nods again, "This moment is coming to an end."

He nods and takes in as much warmth as he can in this infinite moment that will end soon, and thinks of his friends, "I encourage violence." 

And the moment is over and the Queen is alone in the darkness, in the nothing. The warmth and her mask being the only real things left in this space.  
Her hands of nothing hold the warmth and keep it safe, a final gift from Tiberius Stormwind of Draconia to his friends.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this after being completely devastated, no one else is allowed to die!  
> Differing tenses are on purpose to show how weird time is in that final moment not (just) because of my forgetfullness


End file.
